Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

Walking the Talk

How two prominent homeless activists flaked out and failed people living in the woods.

The Execution of Dr. Jose Rizal by Spanish Authorities, December 30, 1896 – Picture in the Public Domain

It’s the weekend of the official celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Saturday, Jan. 19, 30 EarthCorps volunteers and staff, and Beacon Hill neighbors, honored Dr. King in the woods of Dr. José Rizal Park. On Monday, Jan. 21, some 30 UW students, faculty, staff, and nearby neighbors will get together and continue this project begun five years ago.

The park is named after the Filipino national hero. Dr. Rizal was a medical doctor, a prolific poet and essayist, whose two novels Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo condemned the treatment of the Filipino people by Spanish colonial overlords. The critique of atrocities led to charges against Dr. Rizal of inciting revolution.

Like Martin Luther King, José Rizal believed in and practiced non-violence. After his arrest, he was given a military trial and executed by firing squad, at the age of 35, on December 30, 1896. From his martyrdom sprang the Filipino Revolution, a hard fought movement whose victory would not be realized until Corazon Aquino became president. Some would say it is still happening.

It’s fitting on a day that commemorates America’s greatest non-violent leader that volunteers gather and honor not only his life, but José Rizal’s. In 1978, the Filipino community and the City of Seattle dedicated the park to Dr. Rizal. A larger-than-life bust of the leader faces north so the sun will never set on his vision. Throughout the year, it remains a favorite place for Seattle’s Filipino community and the neighborhood as well.

Two who didn’t make the events on Beacon Hill honoring Dr. King and Dr. Rizal are prominent activists with strong opinions about the area. One is Tim Harris, executive director of Real Change, the homeless advocacy paper. The other is Bill Kirlin-Hackett, the executive director of the Interfaith Taskforce to End Homelessness.

Following a column I wrote that appeared in the PI, supporting interagency sweeps of Seattle greenbelts as an alternative to homeless people being victimized by drug-based violence, I invited both of these activists for a walk in the Jungle. They didn’t go.

Bill Kirlin-Hackett did answer my email, to attack my writing ability. When he forwarded the correspondence to unnamed others while cc’ing me, I knew I dealt with questionable ethics. I received that message on Christmas Eve. I sent him a note saying Jesus of Nazareth would have taken that walk without fear or prejudice – I’m not a Christian, BTW. Then I wrote a rule consigning his email address to the bit bucket of automatic deletion reserved for cranks and online offers for Viagra.

In his first message, Bill said he’s been to Beacon Hill. On the annual One Night Out count of homeless people in King County, he’s gone to the Jefferson Park Golf Course and along a walkway beside Cheasty Boulevard. I mentioned Bill’s experience in Cheasty with someone who lives on that greenbelt. The Beacon Hiller made colorful comments I can’t get past the PI disallowed language filter. Though he holds strong opinions, Bill won’t go into the Beacon Hill woods in broad daylight. Still, there is the golf course…

When I visited Tim Harris’ personal blog, I found email gotten from the City. Tim is denouncing the process to create a formal policy toward homeless encampments as not being open and inclusive, and is trying to stage a demonstration against that policy at a public meeting the evening of January 28 at Seattle Center’s Northwest Rooms. Tim wants to equate an “encampment” – a number of interrelated campsites – with a “camp.” Real Change carried a photograph of a typical “encampment” by Tim’s public definition, a solo tent nestled in the woods. That isn’t an encampment.

You can read one of Tim’s diatribes against me on his website at this address under the title Typical Seattle Homeless Encampment Scene. The picture of a baby tying up and holding a syringe sums up Tim’s understanding of what homeless people face in the woods. My invitation to him is posted at the end of his statements. Maybe he doesn’t read what he writes. He didn’t answer, much less walk his talk.

(NOTE: Since this post originally appeared, Tim Harris did respond, with a threat on his blog. You can also see Bill Kirlin-Hackett’s excuse, too. The violence faced by homeless people by those involved in the drug trade in Seattle’s South End has since been independentally confirmed by Adam Vaughn, a producer for KBCS, in interviews with homeless people who now refuse to enter the “Jungle.”)

Elsewhere in Tim’s blog he posted the email from City employees. He’s pretty much ensured no one involved in forming the policy will trust him or Real Change. Anyone can make a request for public information; what you do with that information can say more about you than the message it contains.

Tim’s agenda on this issue, like Bill Kirlin-Hackett’s comments to the PI, has nothing to do with helping homeless people in Seattle’s woods. Instead, these two activists would have homeless people targeted, not by the police as they claim, but by thugs whom they ignore for ideological reasons. While condemning all others, they still can’t get past this question:

Why didn’t they go for that walk in the woods?

It takes more than opinion to make real change, and change is needed in city, county, state, and national policies to help empower the different populations that make up the “homeless,” whether on the streets of New York or in the woods of Seattle. It will take more than reactionary psuedo-radical hype to help homeless people in Seattle’s woods. They deserve better than what hypocrisy and cowardice have offered.

It takes more than a keyboard to walk the talk.

This weekend, 60 people did walk the talk in the woods of western Beacon Hill, honoring the sacrifices of Dr. King and Dr. Rizal. Most would never consider themselves activists. You won’t find their names on any blog, in the PI, Times, Weekly, Stranger, or Real Change. Instead, they are just people. Real people.

Perhaps our city would do better with more actions by those who are just real people, and fewer diatribes by public posers who can’t find their walking shoes.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..